Doctor Who 14x16

1. "The Acolytes of Xoanon defend their God. But only the Doctor knows their world is doomed." (Radio Times)

2. This episode was first shown on 22 January 1977, and was seen by 11.7 million viewers.

3. This was the only serial in the 1976-7 series in which each episode attracted a larger audience than the one before.

4. Note the blue tinge on the right of the Doctor's face where he catches the back-lighting from the wall panels.

5. The CSO Doctors were pre-taped, with Tom Baker in black against a black background, so that only his face was visible.

6. The recorded image was degraded and solarised by passing it through a videcon camera.

7. Chris Boucher intended the red emergency lighting to make the corridor even darker and gloomier than this.

8. He also didn't expect the Tesh to be wearing hats.

9. In the script here, Leela pulls his head back by the hair, and threatens him with the gun, not her knife.

10. If you've been impatient to see Peter Baldock as generic Tesh Acolyte No. 1 - here he is.

11. Leela's boots were originally designed with red decoration to match the stitching on the body of her costume.

12. The script makes it clear that she is firing at the projection of "the Evil One", which appears on the screens all around her.

13. In the script, "the chamber is plunged into darkness and silence",

14. but then begins to stir again, "more agitatedly than before, the volume and intensity building rapidly".

15. So Leela gets the Doctor to his feet and they stumble out together.

16. Then the Doctor operates the door control, leans against it once it has closed, and asks Leela if she's alright.

17. It was a rehearsal decision to play the sequence with the Doctor unconscious and recovering.

18. For the first week or so of production, the plan was for 'The Face of Evil' to be shown directly after 'The Deadly Assassin'.

19. The intended transmission dates were 27 November to 18 December 1976, followed by a week off for Christmas.

20. Had things gone to plan, then Doctor Who would have run on for only the first ten weeks of 1977. But they didn't...

21. In the script, he can also feel static electricity.

22. The object from his pocket is specified as a coin in the script.

23. And here he adds that the door "must be insulated" - he's leaning on it.

24. The brighter than intended emergency lighting meant that this bit had to be rethought and truncated.

25. As scripted, the blank-faced Tesh rises slowly and advances on the Doctor like an automaton, hands out ready to strangle him.

26. But the Doctor and Leela, preoccupied with the electrified walls, don't see him in the murk until it is too late.

27. Leela uses the disrupter gun, but it doesn't work on the zombie-like Tesh, and she throws it away in disgust.

28. She leaps onto the Tesh, who flings her off, but loses his balance, and he and the Doctor go down together.

29. The business of pushing the Doctor's hand towards the wall was in the original, but the fight had a different ending:

30. The Doctor dodges as the Tesh runs at him, so the Tesh cannons into the wall, and... ZZZZTT!

31. But at this time, the production team was keen to make the Doctor more physically assertive.

32. The Doctor's regretful line was a late addition to avoid compromising his heroic status.

33. The model is differently lit from last week: The script calls for "pale morning sunlight".

34. Tomas is played by Brendan Price (born 1947).

35. His previous television work included Space. ; 1999 and The Sweeney (both 1976).

36. His performance impressed Philip Hinchcliffe, who cast him as one of the four leads in his police series Target (1977-8).

37. He later worked extensively in Spanish cinema and television.

38. Neeva, says the script, is "now permanently off-balance, with a suggestion of repressed hysteria, even humour".

39. Rehearsals for this serial followed the usual pattern.

40. On 28-9 September, the rehearsal room floor was marked up with lines to represent the sets in studio.

41. There was a full-cast script read-through on 30 September,

42. followed by nine days of rehearsal (including Saturdays) for each of the two studio sessions:

43. 1-2 and 4-9 October for block 1, then 13-16 and 18-23 October for block 2.

44. They're electronics spares, the script tells us.

45. The script calls for "wide and staring" eyes.

46. Pennant Roberts intended a close-up here showing Leela's finger on the trigger.

47. He's making the crystal resonate,

48. producing the hypnotic (and, in reality, radiophonic) Noise you can hear now.

49. In the script, he stops the resonance, using the sonic screwdriver, between "two" and "three".

50. Early in the rehearsal process, Pennant Roberts and Louise Jameson worked to develop Leela's spontaneity.

51. Louise chose not to think too cerebrally about body language and vocal inflections,

52. because she didn't want to create the character by looking at her from the outside.

53. Instead, she worked on Leela's " The internal energy level determining how she carries her body.

54. Leela is "high-centred".

55. Only about half this speech was The rest was added in rehearsal to accentuate Gentek's panic.

56. Mike Elles, who plays Gentek, had previously been a guinea pig in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1972).

57. He "blacked up" as an islander in The Little Hut (1974), and played a page in The Merry Wives of Windsor (1975).

58. Pennant Roberts cast him again as a shipping clerk, one of the relatively few roles for Caucasian men in Tenko (1982).

59. Jabel is played by Leon Eagles (1932-97).

60. In The Jensen Code (1973), script edited by Philip Hinchcliffe, he played the title character, a scientist and telepath.

61. His later work included a pocket-sized judge in Gulliver in Lilliput (1981; with Elisabeth Sladen),

62. and a brace of senior army officers in The Tomorrow People (1978) And Chocky's Challenge (1986).

63. Note the sallow Tesh make-up

64. in contrast with Leela's tanned, outdoor Sevateem skin.

65. The set's reflective surfaces made it complicated to shoot: The crew had to avoid angles where the camera might see itself.

66. "The images are indistinct and of different textures/colours to indicate that each is built up from different data inputs:

67. "Temperature, pressures, etc."

68. Louise Jameson is 5'6" to Tom Baker's 6'3", but her boots give her a few inches more.

69. For this closing exchange, the script calls for the screen to cut back to Xoanon's point of view.

70. The start of the next scene was cut. The Doctor and Leela arrive at the main control room.

71. The Doctor takes Leela's disrupter gun and breaks it, then gets out the electronic spares he pocketed earlier.

72. "Why did you break the weapon?" Asks Leela. "You didn't think I might use it on you, did you?"

73. "Someone might force you to," replies the Doctor as he works, and Leela protests, "Never!"

74. Then she realises with a shudder what must have happened to her in the communications room.

75. As he adjusts a coloured perspex cube, the Doctor reassures her that Xoanon seems to have "found it very difficult" to take her over.

76. Leela's knock-kneed pose here was a mannerism which Louise adopted from a little girl who lived upstairs.

77. Sally was a toddler coming up to her fourth birthday.

78. Just as Louise used her dog Bosie as a reference point for Leela's instinctual, animal intelligence,

79. so Sally helped her to focus Leela's naive, unsophisticated curiosity, her lack of adult social inhibition.

80. It was scripted as the fusion generator.

81. The Doctor's calmness was inspired by Tom Baker's liking for the writings of Oscar Wilde (1854-1900),

82. in which characters tend to be matter-of-fact about important things, but treat trivial problems as if they are the end of the world.

83. Tom reversed the scripted line, "Crude, but effective", making the Doctor more of an aesthete.

84. Jabel supervises the work in the script, but this was amended to build up Gentek's part.

85. Chris Boucher envisaged a whole barrage of "heavy-duty disrupters", not just the one gun.

86. The Tesh costumes were not constructed quite as you might think.

87. The shoulder pads and sleeves were separate items, detachable from the tunics.

88. During camera rehearsals, some Tesh wore their street clothes,

89. but enhanced with their Tesh hats and their Tesh pads and sleeves.

90. What's the Doctor up to? The scripted explanation was cut:

91. "It should be possible to re-absorb everything I put into the data core originally.

92. "In theory, that should leave me unharmed and him sane.

93. "Unless he's too far gone already or he swamps my brain and burns it out, so to speak."

94. All the serial's videotaped scenes were shot in the 90 by 70-foot Studio 3 at Television Centre.

95. The two sessions were divided along tribal lines: "Sevateem" scenes on 11 and 12 October,

96. and "Tesh" scenes (including this one) Two weeks later on 24-6 October.

97. This reflected the serial's narrative structure, bisected by the Doctor's journey through the mouth of the idol.

98. It was a practical scripting measure which Robert Holmes often deployed,

99. so that each group of sets would only need to be used once, and not kept in store for a fortnight between studio sessions.

100. But there was a drawback: If the recording got behind, there was no option to knock a scene on into the next block.

101. And this serial's first session did run behind, largely because of a mix-up when recording time was booked:

102. On the first day, they should have taped from 7.30 to 10 p.m., but the booking started half an hour later.

103. In consequence, they had to carry on recording until 10.25 on the second day, incurring overtime payments,

104. because a fortnight later, only the Tesh sets and the mouth of the idol would be available:

105. The Sevateem sets would be broken up and destroyed in the process of striking them.

106. There was a further 25-minute overrun on the last studio day, 26 October.

107. This was mainly caused by the time-consuming complexity of the CSO effects,

108. but also because colour grading problems meant they had to re-record an episode's worth of film sequences.

109. The script calls for Leela to speak the mantra aloud, but with the voice of Xoanon.

110. The script calls for a struggle as the Doctor tries to break Leela's trance.

111. He manages to get her knife from her, and puts it under her chin.

112. Then he twists her head back and to one side, and down she goes, unconscious.

113. In the script, the Doctor already has the headset on when he's interrupted: He only needs to plug it in...

114. Burdened with the unwieldy gun, Neeva slips on the polished floor as he enters.

115. This scene used all five cameras: The Doctor's face on 1, Neeva on 2, the two inlaid rays on 3 and 4, and the door on 5.

116. Xoanon's line of realisation was a last-minute addition.

117. It took five eight-hour sessions to complete the serial's post-production editing.

118. Meanwhile, Dudley Simpson wrote the score, covering 40-60% of the action as usual.

119. The music was recorded in two three-hour sessions on 15 and 26 November.

120. The final dubbing sessions, one per episode, took place between 17 November and 6 December.

121. All this was later than planned: Pennant Roberts had to work nine full days beyond the end of his contract on 26 November.

122. And that's why 'The Face of Evil' was shown at the start of 1977, not the end of 1976.

123. The chocolate was scripted as a piece of the food concentrate which was cut from Part 2.

124. And in the script it's the Doctor, not the chocolate, that's covered in silver foil. (In other words, a space blanket... )

125. Camera rehearsals were disrupted on the last studio day as a result of an item in the previous day's evening newspaper.

126. The London Evening Standard reported Louise's casting, so a lunchtime press call was hastily arranged on 26 October.

127. The same afternoon, Tom and Louise travelled the mile and a half from Television Centre to Lime Grove Studios,

128. where they pre-recorded an item for the early evening current affairs programme Nationwide.

129. Presenter Bob Wellings began with a quip that Sarah Jane's replacement should be Diane Harron, Nationwide's daredevil Ulster reporter.

130. "Sarah Jane, who had an awful lot to put up with in her time, was deposited at home in Croydon to continue her Earthly life.

131. "So the search goes on for a new galactic travelling companion for the Doctor."

132. The piece wasn't transmitted live, but it tried hard to mimic the unpredictability of live television.

133. Only someone who'd seen that afternoon's edition of John Craven's Newsround could have had any inkling of what would happen next.

134. The Wellings spiel was interrupted by a wheezing, groaning sound, and he did his best to adjust to the unusual situation.

135. "Extraordinary sound," he commentated. "Yes, it is the Tardis. And that's the Doctor, and there's someone with the Doctor."

136. For the Doctor and Leela had emerged and, ever the professional journalist, Bob seized the chance of an interview.

137. One thing which especially interested middle-aged Bob was the fact that Leela was "more revealed" than Sarah Jane,

138. and the Doctor commented that he "was astonished" by this facet of his new assistant's character.

139. All three tried hard to do the piece in character,

140. but eventually Louise, asked about Leela's character, answered inadvertently in the third person,

141. so the interview continued as a chat with Tom and Louise in their own persons.

142. In the script, the chamber is "bathed in bright, warm light", which pulses gently in time with Xoanon's words.

143. This is a scene that Chris Boucher was reluctant to write.

144. He felt inhibited by the cured Xoanon's intellect, finding it hard to think of appropriate dialogue.

145. So at the end of the draft script, Xoanon is talked about but doesn't actually appear.

146. Holmes and Hinchcliffe found this an unsatisfactory anticlimax, and required a concluding scene with the computer.

147. In the octagon is a pulsating, solarised image of a rose, achieved with Front Axial Projection,

148. an optical technique which reflects projected light on a single axis, in this case back up the lens of Camera 4.

149. On the right of the set, there's a gramophone and sofa (scripted as two chairs). So why can't you see them?

150. Because that side of the picture is masked off with previously shot footage of the set.

151. The furniture appears in a "roll back and mix" effect, replacing the masked area with what's really there.

152. Louise Jameson effortlessly indicates that Leela has never before sat in a chair.

153. The Doctor taps the chocolate as a smoker would tap the end of his cigarette before lighting it.

154. Tom Baker was keen to emphasise that the Doctor, being a children's hero, doesn't smoke,

155. and he made a point of never being seen with a cigarette in public during his time on Doctor Who.

156. In the script, the Doctor reports Xoanon's message a little differently:

157. "That he's anxious to put right the damage that he's done. That he and I have done."

158. It may not be entirely obvious that Pennant Roberts mainly cast the two tribes from actors of markedly different height.

159. For example, Leslie Schofield (Calib) And Brendan Price (Tomas) Were both six-footers.

160. The "little" here was Tom Baker's unscripted contribution.

161. So how little is Gentek? The actor, Mike Elles, was 5'4", eleven inches shorter than Tom.

162. The impending post-production delays became obvious during the period the serial was in the studio,

163. so the decision to defer transmission was taken before production wrapped on 26 October.

164. A run of edited omnibus repeats from the 1975-6 series was scheduled to fill the gap,

165. but in the event, only two of them were shown: 'Pyramids of Mars' and 'The Brain of Morbius'.

166. The third, 'The Seeds of Doom', was pre-empted by the Gerry Anderson TV movie, Into Infinity.

167. The break meant that 'The Face of Evil' was billed was the first of a new series of Doctor Who.

168. In the script, the Doctor prefaces his reply with "If I can say so without seeming over-modest..."

169. The serial was transmitted in a slightly later timeslot, 6.20 p.m. Instead of 6.10.

170. This was only because it was now following a slightly longer programme, Jim'll Fix It,

171. but the "National Viewers' and Listeners' Association" pressure group were convinced that it was actually due to their own efforts.

172. For nearly two years, they had been agitating to the effect that Doctor Who was unsuitable viewing for children,

173. and their newsletter now declared that the later timeslot showed how "persistence pays off".

174. Rehearsals for 'The Robots of Death' began nearly three weeks after production wrapped on 'The Face of Evil'.

175. There was no peace for Tom Baker, He had to go back to work early

176. to have an uncomfortable time trapped in an ore silo for the new serial's only day of live-action filming.

177. Uncredited production contributors included:

178. Mike Felton, R. Williams (Post-Production Grams)

179. Sue Ward (Director's Assistant)

180. Derek Miller-Timmins (Post-Production Sound)

181. Philip Livingstone (Floor Assistant)

182. Production text commentary by Martin Wiggins